I guess the requirement is to prevent the following situation (with apologies to Douglas Adams):
"But Mr. Dent, the source has been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.
Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.
But the source was on display...
On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find it.
That's the display department.
With a flashlight.
Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.
So had the stairs.
But look, you found the source, didn't you?
Yes, said Arthur, yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard."
In addition, if you DO want to mine for He-3 you are talking about strip mining thousands of square km for, say 1000 kg of the stuff. You would literally give the Moon a black eye that is visible from Earth.....
There is actually not that much in resources that we would want to bring back to Earth. The Apollo data show that the moon is resource poor, there are large quantities of iron, titanium, and aluminium plus some various other minerals, but none of those are economically interesting to bring back. There is a now out of print "Lunar Source Book" (Heiken et al.) that has a very interesting compilation of Apollo area data.
In situ lunar resources are interesting if you want to establish a base (oxygen from titanium oxides, radiation shielding, glassy regolith for building block, etc) but the wisdom and usefulness of a base is another matter.
This has more to do with "skin depth" (google it). Basically low frequency radiation reaches deeper into conductive materials like seawater than high frequency radiation. The skin depth is proportional to the 1/sqrt(frequency), I believe.
If they cannot land the shuttle there's always the Space Station. This would mean up to seven new astronauts/cosmonauts in addition to the two already stationed there. In which case they'd run out of food and other resources pretty quick. The Russians would have to launch a Soyez to send provisions until they figure out how to get off that island.
"Now sit right back and you'll hear a tale, the tale of a fateful trip That started from Cape Canaveral abord this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailerman the skipper brave and sure five passengers set sail that day on a nine day tour *** The weather was impeccable but the insulation foam was lost if not for the courage of slash dot chat the Discovery would be lost..." *** The crew set foot on the ISS a small galactic isle....
Slashdot Mirror
I guess the requirement is to prevent the following situation (with apologies to Douglas Adams): "But Mr. Dent, the source has been available in the local planning office for the last nine months. Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything. But the source was on display... On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find it. That's the display department. With a flashlight. Ah, well, the lights had probably gone. So had the stairs. But look, you found the source, didn't you? Yes, said Arthur, yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard."
Yet another confirmation of the soundness of ID....
In addition, if you DO want to mine for He-3 you are talking about strip mining thousands of square km for, say 1000 kg of the stuff. You would literally give the Moon a black eye that is visible from Earth..... There is actually not that much in resources that we would want to bring back to Earth. The Apollo data show that the moon is resource poor, there are large quantities of iron, titanium, and aluminium plus some various other minerals, but none of those are economically interesting to bring back. There is a now out of print "Lunar Source Book" (Heiken et al.) that has a very interesting compilation of Apollo area data. In situ lunar resources are interesting if you want to establish a base (oxygen from titanium oxides, radiation shielding, glassy regolith for building block, etc) but the wisdom and usefulness of a base is another matter.
This has more to do with "skin depth" (google it). Basically low frequency radiation reaches deeper into conductive materials like seawater than high frequency radiation. The skin depth is proportional to the 1/sqrt(frequency), I believe.
If they cannot land the shuttle there's always the Space Station. This would mean up to seven new astronauts/cosmonauts in addition to the two already stationed there. In which case they'd run out of food and other resources pretty quick. The Russians would have to launch a Soyez to send provisions until they figure out how to get off that island.
"Now sit right back
and you'll hear a tale,
the tale of a fateful trip
That started from Cape Canaveral
abord this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailerman
the skipper brave and sure
five passengers set sail that day
on a nine day tour
***
The weather was impeccable
but the insulation foam was lost
if not for the courage of slash dot chat
the Discovery would be lost..."
***
The crew set foot on the ISS
a small galactic isle....
[...what comes next?!]